A desperate South African breast cancer patient pleaded with the United Nations (UN) on Thursday to help her access a drug that can save her life.

Thobeka
Daki (48) asked the UN high-level panel on access to medicines, at a Johannesburg meeting, to help her to get access
to the
drug trastuzumab. Marketed under the name Herceptin,
the drug is produced by
the pharmaceutical company Roche.

“Last
December my doctor told me the cancer in my breasts had spread to my spine. I
know there is a drug that can save me but there is no way to get it,” Daki
said. The mother of two receives treatment for her cancer from the Eastern
Cape's public sector.

With
stage four breast cancer, Daki's chances of survival are fading.

According
to South Africa's Fix the Patent Laws campaign, Herceptin is unavailable to her in the public sector and costs almost R500 000 for a year's treatment in the
private sector.

In
comparison, a generic version of the drug produced in India costs a fraction of
this at about R 150 000, but is blocked by Roche’s patent which expires in 2023.

Research
shows that Herceptin improves the survival rates of breast cancer patients by
up to 37%. Without this hope, Daki told the Mail & Guardian: “I
think I’m going to die”.

The UN panel was convened last November by
UN secretary general Ban Ki-Moon to “address the policy incoherence between intellectual
property laws and access to health”. It is comprised of 16 international experts,
including the former presidents of Botswana and Switzerland.

On
Thursday the panel hosted its second “global dialogue” in Johannesburg, and
heard arguments from civil society, industry and policy makers about solutions
and barriers to accessing health technologies and promoting innovation. The
first such panel was held in London on March 10.

South
Africa’s biggest HIV lobby group, the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC),
delivered a declaration to the UN panel appealing for “ambitious”
recommendations when the panel presents its report to the secretary general in
June. The declaration was supported by 25 other civil society groups from
around the world.

In
this declaration the TAC said the world is “poised on the threshold of a
historic opportunity to redress the policy incoherence and imbalance that
exists” between rights of companies, backed by trade laws, and basic human
rights in respect to public health.

“Whether it is women in
Wales who cannot get the breast cancer medicine they need, or people in
South Africa not being able to access hepatitis B or tuberculosis medicines,
we refuse to accept that any person on the planet has to go without the
medicines they need,” said the TAC-led group.

Daki,
one such person in need, is desperate. She pleaded: “It’s not only me. There are thousands
of women in South Africa who also need this drug. I am really begging the government to give us
access.”